In spite of Hurricane Sandy, dubbed ‘Frankenstorm’, on this All Hallow’s Eve most of the nation’s merry little folks in masquerade will participate in traditional Halloween activities.

Trick-or-treating is a go in storm damaged New York City; Mayor Michael Bloomberg is urging ghoulies, ghosties, and long-leggety beasties to stay away from affected areas and be cautious. According to the latest news report I heard today, Gov Chris Christie, who characterized damage in his state as “too widespread for words”, was still considering issuing an executive order to cancel Halloween in New Jersey until the situation stabilizes somewhat in his state. Given that Christie was touring storm damage this afternoon with Obama, it appears Halloween is a go in The Garden State. Various other cities affected by the super storm Sandy will postpone Halloween frolics until this coming Saturday.

UPDATE (1:21 PM PT): Governor Chris Christie has announced that New Jersey will celebrate Halloween next Monday, November 5, 2012 (election eve!).

While continuing to call upon supporters to be mindful of victims from Hurricane Sandy and to donate to the Red Cross, Governor mitt Romney and Congressman Paul Ryan are back into the ‘spirit’ of things and are campaigning. Today Governor Romney is campaigning in Florida with former FL Gov Jeb Bush and Senator Marco Rubio. Congressman Ryan is spending the day holding events in his home state, Wisconsin, and as the moon rises tonight, will be free to go trick-or-treating with his wife Janna, and three children.

Meanwhile, things that go bump in the night may be the sound of looters and spooks on the left are outrageously baring fangs over Romney’s storm relief efforts. Even though Obama told bone rattling Biden “now is not the time for politics” Joe was up to his usual hocus pocus and also hinted at a 2016 run for the White House. Yikes for America.

Obama will be back on his thorny campaign trail tomorrow, so beware!

Meanwhile, in spite of the double, double, toil, and trouble, the ENDORSEMENT cauldron continues to boil and bubble for the GOP ticket!

Nashua Telegraph (NH)
October 30, 2012
http://www.nashuatelegraph.com

Mitt Romney For President

Four years ago, with little hesitation, we endorsed then-Sen. Barack Obama to become the 44th president of the United States, saying it was a time for “new leadership, a new approach to governing, a new way of conducting the people’s business.”
…
After several hours of spirited debate, not unlike conversations taking place in kitchens and living rooms across America, we reached a consensus that he had not. Perhaps more importantly, when we identified the key challenges facing the nation – jobs, the economy and the national debt – we concluded he was not the best candidate to meet them.

That person is former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, and we hereby endorse him to become the 45th president of the United States.
…
As we noted when we endorsed Romney for the GOP nomination prior to the New Hampshire primary in January, Washington is broken. In order to fix it, it will take a strong leader willing to roll up his sleeves and work directly with the heads of both parties to carve out the best possible solutions.

We believe Romney has demonstrated that he can do that; the president has had four years to demonstrate that he can’t.
…True leaders also don’t wait until two weeks before Election Day – in the form of a 20-page booklet, no less – to lay out a specific agenda for the next four years. Coupled with the negative tenor of the campaign, that merely confirms the president and his strategists felt that attacking Romney’s agenda was more politically expedient than releasing one of their own.
…Nevertheless, we are confident Romney is the candidate who would tackle the serious issues facing this nation, starting with jobs, the economy and the debt. In the end, we couldn’t say the same about the president.

Speaking of hobgoblins, David Axelrod, senior strategist for Obama’s reelection campaign, today declared he would “shave my mustache if Obama loses Minnesota.” Come on! Let’s make Axelfraud break out his razor! While traditionally a ‘blue-wall’, the race is tightening enough that Romney is now buying ad time in The North Star State. Check out the endorsement below:

He moved on health care reform, pushing through legislation without bipartisan support, resulting in a legislative backlash which gridlocked Congress.

This administration has been unsuccessful in reducing the unemployment rate in the United States, with 43 long months with the rate above 8 percent.

Economic growth has remained stagnant through most of his first term. The three-year recovery has been very slow, poverty is up, family incomes are down and housing has been in a slump.

The scary issue facing America this Halloween is a looming fiscal crisis. There is the gigantic budget deficit $5 trillion deeper than when Obama took office. And a looming fiscal cliff deadline at the end of year, when automatic cuts of $100 billion from federal budgets and tax increases of $400 billion, happen unless Congress and the administration make a deal.

For various reasons, Obama has not been a uniting force and has not found a way to work with his Republican opposition.

Four years ago a nation tired of two wars, high deficit spending and an unfolding economic crisis sought a change. The country’s voters chose a young senator from Illinois to lead us forward.

There has been fair criticism of the Republican leaders of Congress who vowed to obstruct the president in the last two years, just as Obama had a Democratic control and didn’t work with Republicans in the first two years of his administration.

And both political parties are to blame for not having the political fortitude to deal with America’s growing fiscal crisis.

On Nov. 6, west central Minnesota voters face a choice for president. We all agree that Washington is broken and not functioning, much like a baseball team that is not winning. There is a time when a change is needed and a new manager is brought in to get the team refocused.

Republican Mitt Romney is seeking to bring that change to Washington. He is promising a new brand of leadership, an economic focus to create jobs and fiscal prudence to work on the budget deficit.
…

Romney has demonstrated his leadership in private business, in state government and in the 2002 Olympics.

He is a successful businessman, who earned his wealth through investment and decision-making strategies. He has spent the majority of his life in private business and said he knows how to grow jobs.

In 1999, Romney was brought in to resolve the scandalous crisis at the Salt Lake City Olympics. He addressed the situation, calmed sponsors, developed new leadership, controlled spending and staged an excellent Winter Olympics.

In 2002, he was elected governor of Massachusetts and faced an overwhelmingly Democratic legislature. He worked with that Legislature to control spending, restructure state government and eliminated a $3 billion state government deficit.
…
America needs a change in leadership to refocus the country and its economy toward a strong and vibrant country. This country cannot afford to slip back into another recession so soon.

UPDATE: Greta van Susteren and Liz Cheney discuss the president’s debate statement he did all he could to protect our people during the attack, while our forces only an hour’s flight away in Italy weren’t deployed during any of a 7 hour, multi-wave attack our leaders were able to watch from drones overhead. Even an F-18 flyover may have scared the attackers off, but nothing was done. Meanwhile on one occasion Reagan acted within 90 minutes to scramble fighters to take down a possible terrorist threat in the sky. Decisive leadership can get things done. The question is: where was the president? Where was the Secretary of State? Wouldn’t the Secretary of Defense have given the president a choice of assets to deploy in the region? Nothing was done, and our president says he did all he could? Greta: “we just sat and watched.”

Officials at the White House and State Department were advised two hours after attackers assaulted the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, on September 11 that an Islamic militant group had claimed credit for the attack, official emails show.

Three emails were obtained.

The first email, timed at 4:05 p.m. Washington time – or 10:05 p.m. Benghazi time, 20-30 minutes after the attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission allegedly began – carried the subject line “U.S. Diplomatic Mission in Benghazi Under Attack” and the notation “SBU”, meaning “Sensitive But Unclassified.”

The text said the State Department’s regional security office had reported that the diplomatic mission in Benghazi was “under attack. Embassy in Tripoli reports approximately 20 armed people fired shots; explosions have been heard as well.”

The message continued: “Ambassador Stevens, who is currently in Benghazi, and four … personnel are in the compound safe haven. The 17th of February militia is providing security support.”

A second email, headed “Update 1: U.S. Diplomatic Mission in Benghazi” and timed 4:54 p.m. Washington time, said that the Embassy in Tripoli had reported that “the firing at the U.S. Diplomatic Mission in Benghazi had stopped and the compound had been cleared.” It said a “response team” was at the site attempting to locate missing personnel.

A third email, also marked SBU and sent at 6:07 p.m. Washington time, carried the subject line: “Update 2: Ansar al-Sharia Claims Responsibility for Benghazi Attack.”

The message reported: “Embassy Tripoli reports the group claimed responsibility on Facebook and Twitter and has called for an attack on Embassy Tripoli.”

Were these just a few emails lost in the rush? Nope. According to the Examiner:

“Fox is told that approximately 300-400 national security figures received these emails in real time almost as the raid was playing out and concluding,” van Susteren added. One of the addresses that received the emails “is the White House Situation address,” she said.

What else do we need to know? Hundreds received these emails, including the White House situation room. There’s no room for confusion. Immediate reports did not suggest a spontaneous protest to a YouTube video. They clearly indicated a terrorist attack.

While I have a hard time calling anyone a liar, it’s getting harder and harder to come up with plausible excuses for how the White House could possibly have maintained in all honesty a position that the attack in Benghazi, which they watched through military drones, was a reaction to the YouTube video. It’s getting nigh impossible to come up with any possible explanation other than utter incompetence or dishonesty. For all Obama’s bluster in Monday night’s debate about “one thing [he] learned” is the need as Commmander-in-Chief to send clear messages and avoid changing positions, his record on this point is disastrously inept.

With this information, how can the White House get to a place where it blames an irrelevant YouTube video for 2 weeks rather than saying it was a terrorist attack? How can it send out the UN ambassador to perpetuate this story with such certitude?

While officials did [early on] mention the possible involvement of “extremists,” they did not lay blame on any specific militant groups or possible links to al Qaeda or its affiliates until intelligence officials publicly alleged that on September 28.

It would be one thing to come out and say “we just don’t know what happened, we are investigating and will let you know when we know something.” But it’s clearly another to blame a cause the evidence before you indicates is wrong.

Here’s CBS’ video report:

If, as this report suggests, the president really thought terrorists were behind the attack, why didn’t the administration slow down and say they just didn’t know? Why take such a definitive position contradicted by the evidence?

Something is really off here, and the president needs to come clean. Was it that the White House truly believed the CIA report mentioned by the Washington Post that suggested the Benghazi attack was a result of the video? If so is this a case of willingly believing the story that suits you best despite significant evidence to the contrary? What does it say about the president or his administration that he’s willing to ignore facts staring him in the face? My bottom line is that it’s getting tougher to find ways to let the White House off the hook here.

Republican politician Mitt Romney was physically threatened by a violent passenger on an Air Canada flight leaving Vancouver this morning.

Mr. Romney, who has been in Vancouver since Friday for the Olympic Winter Games, did not respond to the attack. Instead, he allowed the airline crew to deal with the incident, according to his spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom.
Mr. Romney, 62, and his wife, Ann, were sitting in Row 15 of the economy section of the Embrarer 190 airplane, waiting for the plane to take off when the incident happened.

The man sitting in front of Mr. Romney’s wife dropped his seat back and when Mr. Romney asked him to move it upright for takeoff, the man became “physically violent.” Another report said that the man tried to strike Mr. Romney.

“Gov. Romney did not retaliate,” said Mr. Fehrnstrom.
Mr. Romney was not injured. The pilot returned to the gate and the passenger and his bags were removed by the RCMP.

Crazy news, isn’t it? …What if the perpetrator had made contact? One thing for sure, Romney would have all of us here at MRC at his back!

On a different note, I’m glad Romney is learning to dodge these low blows; I have a feeling the left is going to come out swinging the closer we get to election season.

~Aaron G.

Addendum by Ross:
A video news report with additional details can be seen at My Fox Phoenix

Now it seems the man lowered his seat into Ann Romney right before takeoff, so Mitt spoke up to protect Ann. We’ll continue to update this post as more information becomes available.

UPDATE #4: Mitt’s assailant reveals himself? I might not believe his side of the story, but it is humorous never-the-less. President Obama better beware of Mitt’s Vulcan grip…haha

Addendum by Nate: Kevin Madden, a Team Romney veteran, was asked about the incident and gave this response:

The governor is a very polite guy; he’s not one whose very prone to emotional outbursts or anything. But there’s one thing I know about Gov. Romney too is, you don’t mess with Ann,” Madden said. “But I can guarantee — I bet you not one hair got out of place during it.